Q. Peter, great finish at the end. What was going through your mind walking up to that shot and being able to pull it off?
PETER MALNATI: I've been in a funk. My golf hasn't been good. I had a reset last week. I didn't get to go play golf at my favorite place in the world, Pebble Beach, and it was the first time in my TOUR career I have not been there. So I was really disappointed, but I also instead of sulking, I used the week to reset.
So this week I've been trying to focus really hard on letting go of the results and being more process oriented, trying to take care of my business, do my job, and I've done a great job of that.
With all that said, walking up to the last green there, I did have this thought. The last time I made a cut in an event that had a cut -- I've played a couple that didn't, but last time I made a cut was at the Barracuda Championship in Truckee, California, a long time ago. So I had that thought walking up to the green there. So to see the chip go in and to know I was going to have a weekend tee time here at an awesome event that's super fun and exciting, it feels really good.
Q. The scene of this week, how do you describe the uniqueness of this week? On 16 earlier this week you took out your phone and you were FaceTiming your family.
PETER MALNATI: Yeah, that was so cool. I remember as a kid, the '97 Bulls -- I remember the '97 Bulls because everyone that was alive then like Michael Jordan. So I remember watching the '97 Bulls, I was 10 years old, and I thought, wow, how cool must it be to be the few people that are actually in the arena on the floor. There's thousands of people watching but there's, like, 10 athletes that are actually competing. How cool must it be to be them.
As a golfer, this is our chance to be them. We get to be in an arena and play, and it's just not something that I take for granted. It's really cool.
This week there's nothing like the energy of being on 16 actually because any other 150-yard par-3 with a couple of bunkers around it, we're like, oh, a birdie opportunity for sure. You step up on that tee, and you're like, please don't shank it, please don't chunk it. It's amazing. It's really cool.
Q. Your last shot on 9, what is your process in terms of where you're trying to land it, what type of shot you're trying to play?
PETER MALNATI: Yeah, I must have had a lot of adrenaline on the wedge because you don't want to miss it over the green to that pin, and I really wasn't that disappointed when I hit the wedge. I thought it was good, but it just went way too far, and so I left myself a little bit of a tricky shot.
But fortunately obviously we're on the PGA TOUR, I'm thankful for all the agronomists. We play perfectly manicured golf courses. The grass was great. I knew if I could land it right between -- there was a cut of primary rough and then the fringe and in between was like a semi-cut of rough, and it was probably two or three feet wide, and if I landed it in there, I knew I could trickle it out on the green and you have the right speed to be close to the hole, and fortunately it had really good speed and it was on the right line and fell right in, so that was really, really exciting.
Q. And that emotion, how do you describe what it feels like inside?
PETER MALNATI: I have to say, I'm proud of myself because I did a good job of sticking to that process for the most part this week, but in that moment, I felt a lot of relief, and it was a good thing. It did, it felt really good.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports